Armory Stats - Player Raid Completion Rates
Today we are taking a look at the overall raid completion rate of players. Now that achievements are account wide, we can group characters by account and get an idea of what percentage of players (not characters) have completed a raid at least once, based on earning the achievement for the final wing.

The data used today is a sample from 6.3 million characters from 2.5 million accounts. The sample is slightly biased, as players who are not in a guild are much less likely to appear in our sample. You can leave suggestions for future stat posts in the comments!

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Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Raid FinderGC, lack of tanks has to be one of the main problems you guys need to work on - 45+ min LFR queue as DPS, is just not cool.
It seems to have gotten worse with 5.4. We're looking at the data to try to understand what's going on. (Source)If you want to know why there is less tanks. Please tank a lfr and you will have your answers.
If that was the only issue, it would likely be a gradual decline not a sudden drop at 5.4. That implies it's flex (or a bug). (Source)

then take a look at it before you say it doesnt guarantee everything.
There are guys in LFR doing 10K dps because they don't realize that e.g. you should use abilities as fast as you can. (Source)
In that environment, being able to do any kind of PG will help teach that player how WoW combat should really be played. (Source)And yet the enrage timers in SoO LFR are tuned as though this was not the case.
Hitting enrage timers in LFR is nearly always a lack of understanding the mechanics rather than just low DPS. (Source)
That's still on us to fix, but we'd rather not just dial down all the mechanics until you can just ignore them. (Source)My concern and experience is that SoO LFR seems to be tuned for a level of skill and gear that the mode no longer attracts.
The feedback was very similar for ToT LFR until players knew the fights better. (Source)

No PG experience can be a substitute for the 10 years of raiding that many of us have, but it can serve as an introduction. (Source)Did i get you wrong that it should be an additional prerequisite? Or would it either be ilevel or pgs?
Yeah, we would never require PGs for LFR. It would just be a way to demonstrate that you didn't need the ilevel. (Source)

Just heard the best description of LFR "If someone tells me to eat a pile of crap for $10 million, I'll eat the pile of crap"
I get that, but there are also heroic raiders who get bored once the loot stops rolling it. (Source)
So you can't just argue that every activity must be so fun that the rewards don't play into someone's desire to do it. (Source)

Please don't remove the ability to enter LFR purely on iLevel. Forcing PG medal would effectively shut off LFR for too many.
The idea I floated, and Olivia even referenced, was PG letting you enter with a lower ilevel because you know what you're doing. (Source)

what is the future for lfr now you have split its community in two with flex raiding. it seems from in game play lfr is done.
LFR is still more popular than flex. However we think flex will be more fun for many of our players so we don't mind some transition (Source)

Why is kick protection a thing? having people do nothing and be toxic intentionally is rather frustrating
It was originally to protect folks in 5-player content from e.g. being kicked so they couldn't roll on loot. (Source)
We are considering that kick rules might be too strict on 25-player LFR, where one toxic player can affect a bunch of others. (Source)

I dont understand why people get so hyped about LFD being unsocial. It isnt.Without it, only a few would see content
It's pretty unsocial but it still serves a valuable purpose. (Source)

Class Balance Discussionthere are dozens of fan sites for that. The entire point of having an official forum is to talk to the devs directly.
Just to be clear, that is not our goal for the official forums. (Source)question and run stats on the collected data. Allows massive and robust sample.
Agreed, but it has one massive downside, in that there is no back and forth discussion among players, which I really value. (Source)Regardless, the forums serve two purposes: people complaining to Blizzard; people trolling those people.
While that exists, I find that view a little cynical. There are good discussions with a lot of back and forth as well. (Source)
We learn a lot when there is back and forth between two sides, especially if we can ascertain why they feel a certain way. (Source)

I always see the same people trolling for nerfs and crusading against certain classes. Everyone Is OP except me
As a team, we're a lot more interested in fun than balance. It's just for some players they are tightly connected. (Source)
And of course fun is subjective, so one can't just play the "X isn't fun for me - change it" card. (Source)That there is too much content that requires balance and not enough content that encourages variety?
It's concern, but we're a lot better at making the "balance" content than we are the "variety" content. (Source)

Guild Wars 2 Sale
It looks like Guild Wars 2 is on sale today, but only until Sunday night at 11:59 PM PDT. This is the lowest sale price so far, so now is a decent time to pick up a copy if you wanted to give it a try. You can find regular GW2 news updates over at GW2Guru.

I stopped tanking LFR simply because of gear. I only bothered before to catch up in certain slots or for the legendary quest while my guild was still working on normal's.

Now, im allready at 550ilvl, and all of my gear from TOT was allready upgraded. the LFR loot is just not enough of an upgrade for me to want run SoO an extra time while dealing with some really horrible people at the same time. I could use the valor (i happened to get a glut of gear the last 2 weeks, and haven't upgraded it all yet), but the valor reward amounts simply are not enough for me to bother with the time investment over h scenarios or daily heroic which i can pretty much carry any amount of bad in and be done in about 10 mins.

Flex can fill in the slots better than LFR, can be run with a small group of players who are organized and is more engaging. My guild is also 7/14 normal now, further reducing the amount of slots LFR would benefit us compared to gear we are getting on raid nights.

TLDR: the reward structure is bad for those who arnt strictly raiding LFR

The thing is... Blizzard keeps trying to force people to go against their actual wills. That is something that takes years of practice. There are plenty of people that play MMORPGs simply because they are never ending video games. These people really do not desire to be social at all, and Blizzard keeps wanting them to be more social. The people that want to be more social are already in guilds and are already in raiding guilds if that is what they desire to do. There is definitely two separate groups of gamers in WoW. Those that do not desire to have social ties are not suddenly going to get them.

Blizzard feels that these people are more likely to leave the game because they lack these social ties. That is far from the truth. The truth is that these people are more likely to leave the game because Blizzard continuously treats them like second class citizens, and getting a piece of gear with "Raid Finder" attached simply because this group does not want to form social connections (more like social ass kissing) that is needed in order to get "Heroic" gear is simply something that this group simply does not want to do.

@Retrimootion Hitting enrage timers in LFR is nearly always a lack of understanding the mechanics rather than just low DPS.

It's like GC has never even actually tried LFR.
In one SoO LFR, there was this Hunter doing 18K... and after every wipe where Nazgrim hit the Enrage mark, he would proceed to order around and tell people how the fight goes. He wasn't wrong, which indicates that this was his alt and he had done the fight properly before... which means it IS just low DPS or not knowing how to play that alt class, rather than not understanding the raid mechanics. Or simply not giving a hoot, a lot of people just lazily coast on through LFR to be carried, which GC should also actually acknowledge and address.

I also like Pacster's solution for tanks who bail on LFR: "How about some "can't join another flex or lfr until group finished and 30 minutes penalty on top of that"? That would make them think twice."

Originally Posted by Daez

The thing is... Blizzard keeps trying to force people to go against their actual wills. That is something that takes years of practice. There are plenty of people that play MMORPGs simply because they are never ending video games. These people really do not desire to be social at all, and Blizzard keeps wanting them to be more social. The people that want to be more social are already in guilds and are already in raiding guilds if that is what they desire to do. There is definitely two separate groups of gamers in WoW. Those that do not desire to have social ties are not suddenly going to get them.

Blizzard feels that these people are more likely to leave the game because they lack these social ties. That is far from the truth. The truth is that these people are more likely to leave the game because Blizzard continuously treats them like second class citizens, and getting a piece of gear with "Raid Finder" attached simply because this group does not want to form social connections (more like social ass kissing) that is needed in order to get "Heroic" gear is simply something that this group simply does not want to do.

What makes you think its a decline of raiders? In my opion its just a matter of the number of ppl over gearing things. I have friends that raid msv because they simply dont have the raiding skill to do current stuff. I have many friends that went back and did the old raids they never did once they over geared it. I dont think its because of deliclining raiding. I think as time goes by more people have time to go back and do the older stuff.

Originally Posted by Taiknee

That's really interesting to see that steady decline in raiders. I wonder if they quit, are leveling alts, or are focusing more on PvP.

65-75% participation in Vaults - Terrace seems really good to me, especially when you consider that some of those accounts in the sample probably don't even have a max level character. I know a lot of people talk shit about players that only do LFR but it seems like it really accomplished it's goal of letting more players than ever before experience the content.

I guess LFR is working as intended without the vast majority of WoW players using it to "see the content". Of course this is akin to spraying some graffiti on a brick wall and telling people its the Mona Lisa.

I would like to ask a following armory query:
The percentage of the different tank (can be done with heal or dps in another query) specs who have gold medal in proving grounds. It would show the average percentage of the tank classes. And i would like another one, what is done only to that ppl who have already gold proving grounds - the percentage of completion of the endless wave achievement. It would show if how much % of druids\DK\warrior\monk can get endless waves achievement from the guys who have already gold (so using proving grounds). I wish to know if there is any class who statistically better in the endless wave than the others.

The thing behind is, i got gold but cant improve in the endless, and i am curious its cos i am noob or its cos my class is not optimal. Plus would be nice to see the real tank (heal, dps) percentage to see which is the popular classes.

I would like to ask a following armory query:
The percentage of the different tank (can be done with heal or dps in another query) specs who have gold medal in proving grounds. It would show the average percentage of the tank classes. And i would like another one, what is done only to that ppl who have already gold proving grounds - the percentage of completion of the endless wave achievement. It would show if how much % of druids\DK\warrior\monk can get endless waves achievement from the guys who have already gold (so using proving grounds). I wish to know if there is any class who statistically better in the endless wave than the others.

The thing behind is, i got gold but cant improve in the endless, and i am curious its cos i am noob or its cos my class is not optimal. Plus would be nice to see the real tank (heal, dps) percentage to see which is the popular classes.

We can't do anything with gold, as the achievement shows up for every character. Endless is possible though.